Gamers Are Normal? Shh, Don't tell!

Do you know someone who plays games, but isn't really a gamer? I've met a lot of what I like to call “normal” people in Azeroth. But wait, normal you say? Playing World of Warcraft? How can this be?!

All kinds of people play WoW. People who are new to online gaming, or video and computer games period, have been constantly flocking toward what I consider the most full-featured and accessible MMO built to date. The number of people who had, previously, never ventured beyond Solitaire on Windows 3.1 is impressive. Now they're raiding and getting phat lewtz every week. How awesome is that?

Of course, everyone knows we gamers are far from normal. We fly around on mystical dragons, take magic carpet rides, and yes--we even have neighbors who waggle when they walk (sometimes named Noxychu). So what exactly is normal when we're all responsible for this madness?

What exactly do you define as a “normal” person? Do you hide your gaming habits from others?

Comentarios

Comentario de Farreed

on 2009-05-08T21:47:00-05:00

I don't see anybody as normal, really. Everyone has their quirks that make them unique. It's just some people aren't appreciative of that. >_O

And I don't hide my gaming... Influenza is a word. Of course, I don't draw attention to it either. Like, if someone asks, of course I'm all, "Yeah, I play WoW, it's fun." But I don't chatter off on em unless I know they're interested... Or I'm in the middle of new content: One friend of mine received a step-by-step update of my first Naxx. >_>

Comentario de Queggy

on 2009-05-08T22:01:34-05:00

Normality is a POV.

Comentario de TheChilliGod

on 2009-05-08T22:06:17-05:00

I define a normal person as someone who I find uninteresting. Yeah, so you go out to a friend's place and get drunk off of cheap beer and then go back to working at Wal-Mart the next day. I yawn at your life and that is perfectly normal.If someone told me that they go abseiling or perform stand-up comedy on occasion, I'd find that interesting to a degree. They would therefore be just about as normal as a fellow WoW player or something else who actually engages in the same activities as I, meaning not normal at all.

I tell other people that I play WoW if they ask about my hobbies, and I answer any questions they have about the game, but I certainly don't go about public places yelling out "I PLAY WOW!"

Comentario de Trispion

on 2009-05-08T22:26:22-05:00

for me a normal person is some one that actually goes outside and socializes, but still play wow... like me lol i do sports and all that stuff and i play every once in a while.. but im not all obsessed over it and play 24/7... i do kinda hide my gaming because i might feel like a nerd for some reason....so i kinda hide WOW but other games im fine with because ppl know what they are.. most ppl i know have never heard of wow lol

Comentario de Malgayne

on 2009-05-08T23:16:12-05:00

I try not to hide my gaming habits at all. People who are looking closely at my posting history can find a picture of me playing Super Smash Bros. Melee on the big screen at my wedding.

I also was the primary singer/songwriter in a blues band in high school. We actually got to open for half of the Kinks before everybody went away to college. I like to use that fact to pretend that I'm cool sometimes.

Comentario de blademeld

on 2009-05-08T23:19:38-05:00

Normality is a POV.

Well said.

Also, Malgayne you're cool in my books :D(I like blue)

Comentario de Interest

on 2009-05-08T23:29:51-05:00

Normality is a POV.

This.

In fact, there was a poster in my school that said "Normal is just a setting on a washing machine..."

=P

Comentario de Lugburz

on 2009-05-08T23:46:21-05:00

I am most definately not normal. Everyone I have ever talked to pretty much has called me weird or strange which is fine with me and then they usually walk away so normally I don't have enough time to get to know someone well enough for them to see my gaming habits. The only people who know I game a lot are my two friends who I do it with all the time.

Comentario de Starkie

on 2009-05-08T23:47:30-05:00

Haha, I like both Queggy and Interest's posts a lot.

If someone asks if I play WoW, I say sure. My girlfriend tells me I play too much, but I always remind her that between school, sleeping, and more school, WoW is my hobby. It's not my whole life, and so during my free time I choose to play WoW, as opposed to working on cars, or what have you, and then I kindly remind her that *she* was the one that showed me WoW. Prior to that, I thought it was stupid.

Crazy eh?

I'd like to think as well that no one is normal, but there are quite a few people who don't embrace there "crazy" side, and so we perceive them as boring and "normal"

Edit: Grammar Nazi'ing Myself.

Comentario de RogueLeader

on 2009-05-09T00:10:27-05:00

To put it lightly, even my friends and family call me crazy. But being insane is so much fun, who'd want to be normal anyway? :)

Yours truly is responsible for some fairly ridiculous deeds, like pushing a car backwards through a Wendy's drive-thru at 11 pm (which elicited a stupefied look from the cashier that shall never be forgotten), getting all of his floormates agree to have a bunch of cardboard stand-ups in the elevator lobby on our dorm floor for a month (much to the dismay and amusement of the college, we did have to move them eventually), and watching people's jaws drop when I can actually say I have a level capped toon of every class, can play them all decently, and still have a geared main.

Comentario de vfaulkon

on 2009-05-09T02:13:32-05:00

The only 'normal' that exists as far as people are concerned are social norms, and everyone skates around these norms in one way or another. If there ever is or was a person that was truly normal, they'd be so boring and unnoticeable no one would even notice.

As for my gaming habits, I don't hide them. However, I don't have any gamer friends to talk about games with, and the people I can talk shop with either don't share my taste in games or, to be frank, are difficult to be around for all but the shortest lengths of time. Part of the problem is that everyone notices different things in a game - some catch the music, others the graphics, others (me) the story, etc. - but I'm also not really a full-fledged fan of any games (by which I mean the original definition of fan; fanatic). I enjoy them, but I don't get as into them as most gamers I know, which makes having an equal conversation tricky.

And don't get me started on fanboys. Ugh...

Comentario de WolfWisper

on 2009-05-09T02:45:07-05:00

I've been gaming for a long time, still got my old Nes that is still operational after all these years, not to mention my whole armada of systems and games that I still play to this day. Funny is the fact that I've killed 4 ps2 systems and 2 xbox systems and my ps1 is still alive.... I've had this machine a 3rd generation ps1 not the psone this system still has the serial port on the side... I have no shame of games because it has become a common place, I remember as I am sure a great many older gamers out there, When games was considered "geeky" or the like..

And as a gamers during those times we had to sneak around. I am a fan of all games, I intend to collect all consoles because each system in those concepts always has a few good games to offer regardless of whom says what... I started WoW 3 years ago, and I talk about it all the time with like minded folks out there from the teens to 40+ year old. It's fascinating when people define the term "normal" Each individual tends to have their own view to what normal is. Yet rarely, unless like minded people talk about it and all, will a view of normality, be identical what so ever....

So is there truly a normal person out there? Me personally, I have yet to find a true "normal" person, Thus far each person has their own unique attributes that make them who they are and writes a broad myriad spectrum of a personality. Internal and external means, games it seems has been integrated into the infinite collective of society, and has become more exceptablel in its own right.

Comentario de rhandal

on 2009-05-09T05:57:33-05:00

Normal is relative. I am a merchant mariner and have a chance to meet people from all walks of life, some of which do also play WoW. A good majority of mariners are gamers of one kind or another, laptops and consoles are portable enough to take from ship to ship to keep ourselves entertained while not on duty.

I don't now if we ever broadcast the fact that we're gamers, it's usually a surprise when we hear someone speaking about playing the same games on the ship. As we say on the ships, "whatever floats your boat."

Comentario de CasperDar

on 2009-05-09T08:04:00-05:00

Normal doesnt exist, everyone is 'normal' in thier own way. That's what makes us unique!

Comentario de Fathios

on 2009-05-09T08:49:55-05:00

I never hide my gaming habits, or just my weirdness in general. Even if normality is relative, it is something I most certainly am not, and I'm happy with that. In fact, one of my friends said that I am like the comic relief of his life--when things get bad with him, he talks to me and usually cheers up (although sometimes just gets more $%^&ed when I don't take it or anything else seriously =P)

Comentario de djipizza

on 2009-05-09T09:22:20-05:00

I've never hide my passion to wow, instead you can see me in facebook kissing a wow battle chest, well i am 17 so probably the word normal person will have another meaning to me, but analysing the situation as the thread said, i think that playing WoW wont allow us to be any kind of person, as an example me, i am always inside rich people yatches and mansions doing parties and i have a shaman with decent raiding and pvp gear and a decent arena rating, so dont blame wow the one who makes us far from normal.

Comentario de Dongolev

on 2009-05-09T09:33:13-05:00

in b4 Noxychu

Comentario de Palapower27

on 2009-05-09T12:05:12-05:00

IMO, being normal is being perfect, and since noone is perfect, noone is "normal" :)

Normality is a POV.

Agreed

Comentario de mikunt212

on 2009-05-09T12:17:10-05:00

To be perfectly honest, I would never hide my "gamer-ness". In fact, it would be almost physically impossible.

I have a zelda tattoo across my chest, a horde symbol on my left calf, a D20 down my left forearm, and a Decepticon symbol on my right calf.

Im a gamer through and through, its in my blood.

Comentario de Queggy

on 2009-05-09T13:16:00-05:00

I have a zelda tattoo across my chest, a horde symbol on my left calf, a D20 down my left forearm, and a Decepticon symbol on my right calf.